This morning after a better hotel breakfast than the the last one we set out with our suitcases down to the parking garage where we had left our car the night before. En route we passed my mums great aunt’s old house which is kinda in ruins now but that was quite amazing for her because she used to stay there when she lived in Israel 20 years ago.

We drove and parked under the council buildings and then made our way to Alatefer The Museum on the Seam which is a gallery of art about coexisitance and promoting peace and justice. The exhibit we saw was called Bare Life and has some really awesome pieces – mostly multimedia.

After the museum we made our way into the heart of the shuk (market) in the old city of Jerusalem via the Jaffa gate and soon got buried deep inside the myriad of cobblestoned lanes and alleys. Theres no real way to describe this shuk but its world famous and there are many people roaming around and many slick salespeople calling you their friend and asking where your from and what your looking for. Mum loves a good haggle and we roamed around abit looking at scarfs and other bits and pieces. You really need hours to search this place its just awesome. For lunch we eventually found a hummus place we were recommended and sat down to eat. I can’t explain how good it was. Actually. It was amazing. Best hummus I think I’ve had in Israel so far (and I’ve had alot.) I basically died.

On the way out we bought a few things and did a bit of haggling to get prices down then we went back to our car and started our drive back to Rekhovot. We got stuck in traffic and it took hours then I got lost trying to find Rekhovot. It was bad.

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We started the drive back up the country to Jerusalem with me forgetting my travel wallet in the hotel room duh and I remembered just as we were driving outside of Eilat – and just before I checkpoint I pulled over to check in the boot but then I got paranoid that the soldiers would see me getting out and rummaging in a SUITCASE in the BOOT OF A CAR and would shoot me. Mum calmed me down and I looked but it wasn’t there so we went back and found it.

Fast forward a relatively uneventful 2 hour drive through the south Negev (although this time I had the insight to burn a music cd to listen to in the car rather than having to listen to Arabic music all day long) and we were standing at the foot of Massada. Now this is a place also that really needs to be visited to understand its amazingness. Massada is an ancient fortress on the top of a flat plateau hundreds of meters up the top of a cliff. It was the last stronghold of the rebel jews when the romans conquered Judea. They survived up their while it was being sieged for a long time because they had many stores but the romans eventually built a ramp up the western side with the rocks and drove a battering ram thing up and got into the city. Before they could the rebels had killed themselves rather than to be enslaved.

Anyway up a cable car ride you can walk around the ancient ruins of Massada and they are quite something – much of it has been restored but they paint a black line to show you where they’ve built up and which is original excavated ruin. There is a palace and a bathing house and a synagogue and a water cistern and storerooms – its basically awesome and the view out to the dead sea is spectacular.

After massada we went for a quick dip in the dead sea at Ein Geidi then proceeded to head to Jerusalem. Now let me tell you out of all the stressful places I have driven in Israel Jerusalem really cuts the mustard. Especially because we arrived in rush hour and most of the streets are one way – so finding the place was a nightmare and only after going round in circles for half an hour and stopping and asking for help did we discover that theres no parking in the city and at the hotel and you were supposed to just know this!! Anyway the helpful lady let us take our suitcases from the car and leave it in her shop (cause we were close to the hotel) and we went down the road and parked and walked back and got the suitcases and walked to the hotel. Phew.

That night we went to visit a childhood friend of my mums from Australia who is now religious and has 9 children and lives in some freaky religious area in Jerusalem and we had to cover our arms and legs to visit. She was really funny and her little kids were really funny and cute. After awhile some of our family Ella and Hayim picked us up and took us on a night time car tour of Jerusalem which was just awesome! Through some of the older parts of the city and up to the university and the mount of olives where you can see the entire city. Afterwards we all went and had a hot chocolate in a cafe which incidentally had been suicide bombed 5 years prior – its pretty much the center center of Jerusalem’s center. Afterwards we crashed!

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A bit of a restless sleep last night but nevertheless we got our 6′0clock wake up call and got ready to go to Petra! We ate breakfast and was picked up in a huge tour bus. We were not sure what to expect – but until we picked up a dozen REALLY ANNOYING American tourists we actually thought the tour would be casual and nice! They were TEXT-BOOK classic clique fat American tourists who have awful senses of humour and really loud voices. Anyway.

So the tour really started at the Yitzhak Rabin border crossing into Jordan. If you don’t know who Yitzhak Rabin is you should. Read for 1 minute here. The border crossing over to Jordan was a bit tedious – first on the Israeli side you go with your passports and get stamped and wait around – then you walk through no mans land to the Jordan side. This bit takes awhile – our tour representative takes all passports and goes and does the formalities on our behalf and we waited for an hour or so. Theres a little souvenir shop there and it gives you the first taste of haggling Jordanian sales people hassling you to buy.

After the border crossing we get on a bus and drive for two hours through some of the most phenomenal landscape I have seen. The mountains either side of the main highway are towering and made from sandstone rock with many different minerals creating huge dark colored lines which slice through the hills. Then you continue and start going through the desert valley where you see camels and donkeys and the landscape looks apparently the most like the moon and mars than anywhere in the world. Then you turn and head north west toward Petra and start climbing through the high mountains where you see nomadic bedoin peoples living in tents that they move every few weeks and leave piles of rocks indicating where they have lived – with the amount of kilometers they moved to in rocks high and the top rock pointing in the direction they’ve gone.

Once we arrived in Petra we drove through the township to the entrance to the hidden city and proceeded with our tour down into the canyon. Then what we saw inside is hard enough to describe with photographs or words aloud let alone down in writing. Even if you see photo or video of the entire place you will not feel the experience of Petra – its incredible. We wandered around for about 3 hours talking with the young kids trying to sell us ‘ancient’ artifacts and souvenirs – claiming that just for us they will sell it half price.

After the end we walked back out and got on the bus and had lunch at a nearby hotel. After the two hour bus ride back followed by a coach tour of Aqabar (the city on the gulf next to Eilat) and we were back at the border on our less painful return into Israel. After mum and I shared a pizza we konked out in the hotel room.

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Yesterday I just hung out with my uncle chuck as he checked out a new car he was going to buy – turned out to be a lemon – but in the process we went to Tiberias and to Ami’ad which is the kibbutz my grandma was on when it was set up! And she remembers being there when one of the wars were on and Arab people were up on the hill next to the kibbutz shooting down on them all day! We got a fellafel in Tiberias – seriously it’s hard to explain without seeing it yourself but coming from little ol NZ every eating occasion in a dingy fellafel shop is an experience.. so much fun I love it.

Today I got up early and drove to Nahalal to pick up mum and we embarked on our journey to Eilat. Its almost the entire country – but still doesnt take that long – except if your us and you stop a million times. We first drove through a town called Bet She’an which has some old ampitheatre ruins. Coming from a young country like NZ it’s hard to fathom ancient ruins but when you see them you really do feel the history and the age. After we left bet she’an we drove into the very eastern side of the west bank and drove all the way down towards Jericho down the border of Israel and Jordan. It’s an experience driving this part of Israel – shows you the reality of a militarized country – lots of army trucks with machine guns on and UN vehicles not to mention the fence of the border. However despite all this all along the way Arab Israeli’s live and farm and work and do their thing. Kids are running around and life is life. It’s their reality.

We drove around Jericho (the road kinda avoids it) because its a bit of a dodgy city. A few checkpoints later and we joined the road from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. We passed Kalya which is the kibbutz mum lived on and did the army while she was there. The last checkpoint my second cousin was working on so we stopped and chatted to him for awhile. Its all abit weird but I guess in terms of checkpoints this was a nice one – the sun beaming down – a beautiful view of the Dead Sea and a radio blaring a radio station they pick up from Jordan. After a little detour up the huge cliffs to take a photo and lunch in En Geidi we continued down past the salt pools and factories on the way through the Negev desert to Eilat. A few hours later and some confused lostness in Eilat we finally found our hotel and checked in grabbed some hummous and ful for dinner and then crashed!

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